Actus Deus
by jimmybeam
Summary: When a mad God stole millions of children andadults right out of their clothing, he made one mistake. He took Sam Vimes' son. And now Sam Vimes is going to get him back. No matter what the cost.
1. Actus Deus

See it turn, in its perfect impossibility. The disk, on four great elephants on the back of a greater turtle, floating in the infinite void. See, if you can, the great ropes of octrine that twist and writhe in the nothingness: lightning bolts thick as mountains, strong and furious as life itself. Not alive but made of life. See them dance beyond the edge of sight, the pegs and joinings of this world.

See the lights that stretch and twinkle like living things and so they are, the life of cities that spread like primordial slime over the face of the disk. And see here the mouth of darkness, the cave on the slopes of Mount Dunmanifestin, home of the gods.

See the God before his altar.

See here where it started. See the apocalypse-spark, the life that twists on the ancient stone. And see the God, the God who was, the God who is. See him here as he pierces hands, feet, heart. Hear the screams that the God ignores, intent on the knife. See the Lonely God who is his own last priest, whose name was worshipped, feared, forgotten. See the madness of the God. Hear the words, ancient when the Turtle was hatched, old when the elephants were birthed from an unknown womb beyond the stars. Hear the words of the God, and fear.

A spark of light above the silent form. A spark that does not burn out, but burns in, twisting and burrowing in space and time, before sliding into dimensions never charted.

See the God smile.

It was a tawdry and unworthy pleasure, but Sam Vimes liked walking through The Heights in his ragged copper's uniform. The streets were clean here, and white, throwing back the hot summer sunlight from wall to roof until you squinted as into a sharp light, throwing the street into a soft focus. Here and there, darker figures scuttled in the weak shadows, hauling rubbish bins behind them. They were human—the shambling gnolls that cleaned the rest of the city1 would have sent the smooth, crisp people of these streets into a fit of conniptions.

It was only in the past few months that Vimes had begun patrolling The Heights. There was little crime2 here. Truthfully, there was no crime. No one3 would be stupid enough to try and rob any of these neat and stately manors, conspicuously unbarred.

[[1 Everyone knew the gnolls kept the streets clean. (Well, cleaner) However, no one seemed to know what they did with what they collected. Oddly enough, and against all previous human experience, absolutely nobody was curious enough to find out.

2. At least 'crime' as the people in the white houses behind the white shutters would define it. Personally, whenever Vimes walked past the house of Mr. Boggis, President of the Thieves Guild, he thought their definitions needed to be updated.

3. At least, no one who valued their teeth, fingers, and ability to walk without the assistance of complicated and expensive machinery. ]]

The beat was new, and the inhabitants of the heights were still unused to the bedraggled brown figures slouching along the pristine sidewalk. In his less charitable moments, Vimes had considered sending Corporal Nobbs to walk the Heights beat. Human pity stayed him- not for the sleek figures in fine carriages who lived here, but for the others, the maids and streetcleaners. He suspected that even an Ankh-Morpork washerwoman couldn't scrub the streets clean enough to dispel the essence of Nobby-ness the little corporal carried with him. In the end, Vimes did it himself. No one else would know what to look for.

He smiled to himself as he saw a carriage pull past him, stopping a few yards up the street. His shoulders slumped, his deceptively fast and rolling stride becoming a shuffle. He tilted his helmet back, and whistled. He considered putting his hands behind his back and waggling his truncheon, but felt that would be tempting the God of Overacting to strike him dead on the spot.

A man stepped out of the carriage. Medium height, he wore tight black clothing that did him no favors. He looked around with the comfortable air of a man with ten thousand dollars a year of his ancestor's money. His gaze sharpened as his eyes passed over Vimes, dismissing him. He turned back to help a woman out of the carriage. She wore a pale pink dress that whispered 'expensive' louder than most clothes could shout.

When the young man turned around again, Vimes was still there, shuffling along as insolently as if he had a right to be there. And Vimes waited .Waited for the spine to stiffen, the mouth to open, the eyes to meet the face….

And there. An evil delight leapt in him as shock, fear and then a blank mask replaced the naked contempt. To his credit, the young man recovered quickly and sketched a respectful bow.

"Your Grace Vimes." he said, so you could hear the capitals.

Vimes ransacked his memory. Something stupid. Something like a rich, fat little…

"Ah, Mr. Toadstooll. What a pleasure it is to see you on this fine day."

A thin smile.

"It's Toh-ad-schul, Your Grace. Pronounced in the Klatchian fashion."

"Is that so, is that so. The things you learn every day. And this, I presume, is your wife, the lovely Mrs. Toadstooll?" Vimes sketched a bow, deeper and neater than Toadstools, and blessed the long hours Wilikins had spent teaching him.

The eyes, which were not toadlike at all, but something like a sheep's, narrowed.

"My apologies, Your Grace. My wife, Molly."

"A pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

"The pleasure is all mine, Your Grace. I've heard of you, of course. Many times. But I have not had the pleasure of your acquaintance."

Vimes smiled charmingly, another skill Wilikins had taught him.

"Well, ma'am, speaking in my position as Commander of the City Watch, I hope I do not have many opportunities to further the acquaintance."

She laughed, longer and louder than the hoary old joke had deserved the day it was coined. Vimes felt the hot flush of half-guilt that came whenever a woman who was not his wife found him attractive.

"And this," she said brightly, "is Thomas!" She lifted a small bundle of what looked like cloth, although the sharp-eyed observer might notice a pink nose poking out from the layers of wrapping.

"Wave hello, Thomas!" she cooed. "Wave hello to the nice policeman!" She somehow separated a indeterminate limb from the package and waved it at Vimes. Vimes, feeling rather silly, waved back, wincing. Thomas Toadstooll. The kid was doomed. Vimes was one of those people made to be awkward around children, and thus beloved by all children, usually the sticky ones. He'd hoped the birth of his own son, Sam, would have changed that, but as it turned out, the only child he liked was his own.

"What a wonderful little boy," he lied, then straightened up officially, and touched his helmet respectfully.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, ma'am, and your Thomas. I'm afraid, however, that I must be going ."  
She looked disappointed for a moment, and Vimes felt newly guilty.

"Good day then, Your Grace."

"Good day, Ma'am. Sir."

And with a bow to the lady and a curt nod to Toadstool, Vimes walked down the road, waiting until he was sure Toadstooll could not see his face before grinning. He supposed it wasn't his proudest moment, striking a little fear into the man. But a man can't be proud of everything he does, can he?

He listened as he walked away, an old coppers habit that he couldn't turn off. They argued quietly, ignoring the slowly receding figure until…

"Thomas? Thomas? Bernie, have you seen Thomas?"

"You had him, dear."

"I know, and I just set him down on the seat for a moment while I got my hat."

"Isn't he still there."

"No," and now there was a hint of panic in her voice. "Bernie, his clothes are still here, but he's gone."

"What? Damned foolish woman, let me see."

Vimes had stopped, and now he turned around.

"Look, Bernie, see? Heres his blankets, and his clothes, and his shoes, and his hat but he isn't here." The panic took root in fertile soil, grew and spread.

"Thomas? Thomas? THOMAS?"

"Excuse me, ma'am, but is there anything I can do to help?"

Molly Toadstooll turned towards Vimes, relief blossoming in her eyes. The law was here, the nice policeman was going to make everything all right. Vimes shrank before that gaze, even as it made him proud. The days when the Watch was a joke, a dumping place for useless boozers, was gone. Now, the police were there to help, to keep the law, to settle disputes. Even Nobby got looks that were less disgusted than they used to be. But at the same time, he knew the truth. He'd seen that look on too many faces, with too many dead bodies in the next room. Coppers didn't help that often. Most of the time, they just wrote the reports, bagged the evidence, and filled out the forms.

"What happened, ma'am?" he asked, in his official voice: smooth, confident, calming.

"My Thomas…he was right here a minute ago. I showed him to you, remember?"

She spread her hands in desperation, questioning her own sanity. Vimes nodded, and she calmed.

"Then, I turned around, laid him on the seat, and stood up to get my hat."

She pointed at the small hatbox strapped just above the door.

"I didn't even turn my back, I just looked away, and when I looked back, he wasn't there. Look!"

She pointed at the bundle. It looked much the same, rumpled and flattened where she had grabbed it, but otherwise still tightly folded, wrapped, and fastened. Vimes reached out and pulled loose the pins. Blanket. Another blanket. And then clothes, perfectly arrayed. A nappy, the sharp scent of urine rising. Vimes reached out and touched it. Still warm. So were the clothes. The little jacket still buttoned, the tiny strings on the hat still tied.

What the hell? Vimes thought to himself. It looked like the kid had simply vanished out of his clothes. He turned around to ask another question, when a scream sounded from up the street.

"JOHN? JOHN?"

Another woman rushed up to the carriage. She was dressed in the almost-a-uniform dark dress and white cap of nannies everywhere.

"Officer, please, have you seen a little boy? About this tall? Had blonde hair?"

"Ma'am, please, calm down. What happened?"

She burst into tears, sobbing, choking on her words.

"I just turned away for a second, I promise! He said he was hot, and I bent down to get his umbrella, and when I got up, he was gone!"

She broke down completely, at that point. Vimes reached inside the cart, and a cold part of him, a part he would not listen too, knew what he would find. The clothes had been moved, tossed to one side by the frantic woman, but they were all there. The little shoes still had little socks tucked inside. Socks with little ducks. He picked up the undersheet, stained oddly. A red, not like blood was red, just red. A patch of dusty gold. He touched it, rubbing white dust on his fingers. No, not dust. Grease. And the smell.

"We'd just come back from the fair up on Cockburn Street," she continued, her crying stopped, "he got his face painted and he said it made him hot so I got his umbrella…"

And Vimes recognized the smell. Greasepaint, a memory of himself in the Small Gods Hogwatch Choir, his mother in the audience, the greasepaint on his face. And if you turned your head and squinted, the gold there, the red, the thin lines of black…

"Was it butterflies?"

Her head jerked up, shocked.

"What?"

"On his face. Did they paint butterflies?"

"Yes, but I don't see…"

He held up a hand and she stopped talking. His mind raced. Wipe off the paint, that made sense. But who could take a child out of his clothes? What could simply steal a child in a second? He remembered seeing the nanny ahead of him as he'd walked away from the Toadstoolls, and there was no one near her. And the butterfly was still there. What could steal a child out from under makeup?

Magic. Had to be.

And then another woman ran up. She was wearing an expensive silk robe in rich flowing purple, clutching it tight at the throat.

"Officer, please, have you seen my boy? He's about six, he has dark hair, he might have been naked…"

Another woman, face lit up with relief at the sight of a uniform.

"Officer, its my girl, Sally, have you seen a little girl? I think she took her clothes off…"

"Excuse me…"

And Vimes looked up, at women, and a few men hurrying towards him, hurrying out of buildings and they were all shouting, some at him, some just shouting. And there was something, something he had to remember, but they were all so loud.

Three words rose in his mind, curling like ink in clear water.

_What about Sam?_

The city was growing louder around him. There were far off screams, animal screams of fear and pleading and Sam Vimes stood for a heartbeat. Another. And then there was fear, white and sharp, cold as hot iron.

And then there was nothing to do but run. His city screamed around him, and Sam Vimes who guarded her streets, Sam Vimes who was her knight, who was her law, Sam Vimes ran and did not hear the screams.

Through white streets. A woman, terrified, hair disheveled, mouth open, shouting. He threw her aside without breaking stride. An accident, two carriages both piled up, smashed, horses running away ignored as people dug through the wreckage. Carriage doors stood open, the interiors empty, somehow emptier than they had ever been.

And he ran. Not far, not close enough not fast enough, another punch to a desperate man and he didn't care, he didn't feel and here was his house, his gate sams toy cart was he here no no no it was empty godsdamnit, and the house no sam hallway no sam dining room no sam kitchen

Sybil. Sybil in his room sybil in a heap on the floor sybil with clothes empty clothes gods no not empty and he was on his knees and screaming. Screaming as he knew what he would see. Screaming as he looked. And the little shoes with the little socks. Dragons this time.

She read the question in his face, and the answer was in hers, but she spoke.

"Gone. He just vanished. Sam, I swear, I was watching him, I was looking at him and he just vanished…"

He didn't hear the rest of it, he was already out of the room. A movement at the end of the hallway. He leapt, slamming the figure into the wall. If there was room for surprise, if there was room for anything but pain so great he could not even see it all, feel it all, he would have been surprised at his voice. Flat and calm, with death shot through it like a black thread.

"Where is my son?"

"Sir?"

"Wilikins?" He shook the butler, hearing his head thump on the wall and he didn't care, couldn't care. "Wilikins, where is Sam?"

"With milady, sir? I have not seen him. But sir, I must speak to you, its my niece, Abagail…"

Down the hallway. Outside. He must have gotten outside. Because he couldn't be gone. There could not be a world without Sam. He would not permit it to be so. Not this world. Not this child.

He didn't remember the rest. They told him later that Carrot had come looking for him when the city erupted, that it looked like he was headed towards Unseen University. That he had punched out the first copper that tried to stop him. That Carrot and Angua had tried to hold him, but he'd torn away, howling. How at last Detritus the troll had to come up behind him and wrap his huge arms around Vimes, picking him up wholesale, carrying him to the station.

He came back to himself when Detritus shoved him in a cell, after he rebounded twice from the iron bars. He wanted to weep, to scream, to run mad in the streets, but something inside of him clicked. Something that was him, that was him beneath the copper, beneath the husband, something even beneath the father. Something that knew what he had to do, and something that would do it in the face of all the hells that were.

He stood up, and nodded. Detritus stopped leaning against the door and opened it.

"You done being crazy now, sir." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, sergeant, I am."

"Dat's good sir. Cos we gots work to do."

He walked out towards the door, and stopped, halfway there and turned.

"Detritus, you and Ruby—little Sapphire…"

He trailed off at the look of grief on the troll's face.

"All of dem, Mister Vimes. All de kids. Gone."

"Detritus, I'm…I…"

And Vimes stopped, crossing the room in a step, and did something he'd never done before. He simply wrapped his arms around the big troll. A moment of surprise, and the heavy, gentle arm around his shoulders. The hot, slightly acid splash of troll's tears rained down on his helmet. Vimes realized he was weeping as well, hot tears of loss, of ruin, of damnation. For a long moment that he could not resist, he stood there, leaning against the troll, solid as a wall, and wept with his friend for the loss of both their worlds.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Author's note:

For those of you a bit confused as to where I'm going with this, well, it's a long story. What it is, essentially, is a look at the Rapture (yes, that whackadoo fundamentalist belief) and its aftereffects if it happened in the discworld.

To completely understand WHY I'm doing this, it would probably be necessary to read the Left Behind critiques available at .com. Suffice it to say that the popular "Left Behind" books depict people who do not feel, think, or act like human beings- who are not characters, so much as cardboard cutouts. So I decided to see what would happen if you took good people like Sam Vimes and Raptured away their children. The result, as you can see, is not so pretty.

Ultimately, this is the story of The Day the Children Were Taken. And what Sam Vimes will do to get them back. Hope you like it.


	2. Rapture

There were fewer deaths than Vimes had thought there would be, once he'd started thinking again. It had been bad, in the beginning. Carrot had been walking Broadway when it happened. There had been screams at first, then long moments of desperate searching. Long moments turned into long minutes without children, without hope, without anything but prayer.

And then they'd broken. One long hollow scream that convulsed the entire city. Carrot said he could hear the dwarves coming a half mile off. Until the trolls drowned them out.

They'd come together at the corner- a wave of dwarves, of humans, of trolls. There was the breath, the moment of building hate. Of racial memories written in the bone, of hates forgotten, of new hate. A wrath and a gathering storm of pain stood to break and rain blood all over the cobblestones.

The world breathed, the last breath before dying.

And then, by all the Gods, it was Moist Von Lipwig who saved the day.

There had been a cry "Way for the mail!" and a rattle of clay hooves like thunder, and Von Lipwig rode into the square on a fire eyed golem horse. He was waving a bit of paper in the air and shouting.

"It's everywhere!" he shouted, "Off the clacks!"

There was a muttering now, rising, and he screamed above it.

"All the children! Klatch, Lancre, Sto Lat! They're all gone everywhere!"

They'd stopped at that, to hear him out.

And he told them. The clacks had lit up, priority messages from everywhere, going everywhere. All the same. Our children. Please, someone help us, our children are gone. There were other stories as well.

Like the one from Lancre of troll armies massing in the hills. And then there were no more stories about them.

It was weeks before a traveler arrived from Lancre, and told them what happened. Told them of how the mountains seemed to grow seven feet thicker, carpeted with living rock. Of the three mad women who had walked out to face them as men fled. How he had walked out too, driven by an insane courage he'd never known before, and would never know again. Of the mighty oath he'd stood witness too, sworn on nothing but wind. No oath of salt and blood, of bone or rock, could encompass what was sworn, and so it was sworn on the wind, so the wind would carry it to whoever did this. He remembered, and shuddered at the memory. The old woman with a face like a hatchet, the fat old woman, her faced etched with grief. And the young one, the queen who lost her child, and it was the young one he feared in that moment. And it was the young one who swore.

"We will get them back. All of them. All of our children."

The world fell silent, as if to mark the moment. The trolls had looked at them for a moment. And the witches had looked back. And then the trolls, one by one, bowed, and then turned to disappear into the forest. They were all gone save one, the last and largest, his thick skin like marble, the mark of the chief.

"We will remember what you have sworn." he said, and then turned and left as well.

They didn't know what had happened. None of them did, in the mortal world. It was hidden even from the eyes of wizards. But Death knew. Death Always Knows.

He found out first, when he suddenly found himself lying on the floor. There had been a moment of skipped time, and a sudden change. It took him nearly five minutes to realize what had happened.

It was quieter. Not quiet. Not silent, but there had been a definite reduction in the noise of falling sand that is everywhere in Death's domain. Curious, he opened the door behind his desk.

There are many conflicting theories about geography of the afterlife. There is something about wandering in the desert for years subsisting largely on locusts, honey, and the occasional colorful mushroom that turns prophets into something like a theological fashion reporter. Most of the more torrid, and therefore popular, accounts seemed to come down heavily on two things: lots of bad things happening to Other People, and jewels.(1)

Whatever the case may be, Death could guarantee one thing about the afterlife, at least his little corner of it. There were hourglasses. To simply say there were a 'lot of hourglasses' severely understates the essentially hour-glass-y nature of deaths domain. Leaving aside issues of mass and size, they were the focus of this place, the insubstantially substantial ledgers of every life there was. A microscope stood on a table to examine the tiny lives of bacteria. In other places, the great life-timers of Golems and longbeard pine trees stood like pillars, great and glacial tides of sand drifting slowly within. Perhaps a grain a day, perhaps two, but slowly the grains fell. Here was the infinite patience of Death marked and measured.

The hiss of a million, billion falling grains makes quite a noise. But now they were making quite a bit less noise than usual. It took Death another moment to see why. Many of the lifetimers were full.

Completely.

Of the lifetimers Death hastily checked, almost a third were stuffed with sand, top and bottom. Frowning(2) he carried several of them into another room, this one as lined with books as the other was lined with hourglasses. He checked the names on the bottom of the hourglasses, and pulled down several books. He opened the first to the most recent page.

"Three Big Fish was eating a cookie, and walking down the street with his mother when he turned to look at a small pig in a butchers window. He turned to his Mo-JOYJOYJOY JOYJOYJOYJOYJOYJOYJOYJOYJOYJO…"

Death closed the book, opened another.

"Sally Jennings was playing with her dog, Dog, in the backyard of her house. She picked up a sti- JOYJOYJOYJOYJOYJOYJOY."

Another. Another. Each one in the same hand, a blocky script that did not waver, did not change. Like a machine etching out identical words, identical feelings. Death closed the last of the books and sat for a moment. His fingers did not so much _drum_ on the table as _castanet_ on the table, but he took no notice. Then, carefully, he collected a sample of the changed lifetimers. And carefully, he checked and double-checked the records. He looked at the list of figures in front of him, and reached the conclusion that tens of millions of mothers had made in moments.

Then he picked up a pen, and a piece of paper, and began to figure. Call the population of the Disc five hundred million. (3) At any given time, given the vagaries of famine, disease and war, about a third of those were children. He hesitated, checked the list again. None over ten. Cut that number in half again.

Seventy-five. Seventy-five million children.

There weren't words for it. To affect the lives of seventy-five million people at once. There wasn't power like that. _Gods_ didn't have power like that.

Did they?

Death never hurried. He, after all, had all the time in the world. Nevertheless, there was a definite sense of hurry to him as he walked to the small, almost hidden door at the end of the hall. He took a deep breath(4) and stepped into a room lined with books as tall as temple pillars and thicker. He bolted the door carefully behind him, and began to read.

1. This actually goes quite a long ways towards explaining the ancient enmity between men and trolls. Picture someone giving a loving description of a heaven made out of human teeth and skulls, and you will understand what it feels like to be a troll in a revival tent.

2. Actually, of course, he grinned. But he _thought_ frown, and that's what really counts.

3. Of course Death knew the exact population of the Disc, down to the last virus. Anyone pursuing the question too deeply was likely to be on the receiving end of the sort of cold look that only a seven-foot tall skeletal personification of death can give. This usually serves to discourage further curiosity even in the most determined statisticians.

4. It's all a bit complex, metaphysically speaking. Essentially, despite the fact that the skeleton that was Death had never actually been inside a person, the resonance of the human morphic field meant some things just sort of happened. Don't think about it too much.

Authors note: Bit of a short update. Essentially, I've reached as far as I can without some careful plotting. I know roughly where this is going, and I know how it ends, but to truly capture even a little bit of the brilliance Sir pTerry's characters deserve, careful plotting is required. More soon, I promise. And sorry about all the edits, FF is a bit of a pain to work with.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a rare thing for a wizard to be up and about before noon. Breakfast was at 12:15, lunch at 3:30, and the rest of the day was spent carefully fortifying against the great challenge of dinner at nearly 7:30. And so at ten thirty, not a single wizard was out and about. Which may have been all that forestalled disaster. By the times Vimes collected what he could of himself, it was nearly noon, and there was a crowd outside Unseen University. He had seen crowds before- happy crowds cheering fireworks, and crowds on the edge of riot, but he had never seen one like this.

It was quiet. It studied, and looked, and thought, and to a man for whom the stupidity of crowds was a more-or-less unwelcome fact, it was terrifying. They were massed in front of the gates of the University, and they were going to get in. They weren't quite sure how, and they weren't quite sure when, but they would get through those gates.

It was hard to blame them. Indeed, Vimes wasn't sure if he did. What else could take the children (the children the bastards took the children) right out from under his nose? He walked to the front of the crowd, and their eyes fastened on him coldly. Took his measure, and waited to see whether he would live or be just a suddenly appearing smear on the sidewalk. He cleared his throat and spoke.

"Right, lads," he said. "I don't need to guess why you're here, and I can't say I don't trust your instincts. But we've got no proof. So here's all I've got to say. I lost my boy, Sam," (And if his voice broke on the word there was none there who would judge him.) "and I'll get him back. So I'm going to walk in here and find out the truth."

He looked around. The faces hadn't changed. He went on.

"You all know me. I'm Sam Vimes, and I don't need to say more. And I'll give you my word on this. If I find out they're the ones as done it, I'll stand aside, let you do what you will. But if they aren't…"

And now his gaze sharpened like broken glass and even that crowd leaned away.

"Well, if they aren't, you'll have to go through me. Come hell or high Ankh, this is still a city of laws. Understand?"

And without waiting for a reply, he turned and rang the great iron knocker. A few moments, the sort of moments that might be occupied by waking up, finding trousers, getting trousers on the right way around, and hurrying down a long flight of stairs, passed. Then the door opened.

"I don't know what sort of hour this is for decent-"

The voice was cut off in a way that suggested several feet of very sharp steel had just been placed at the end of the voice's nose. Which, as it so happened, was exactly the case.

"Tell Archchancellor Ridcully that Commander Vimes would like to see him at my earliest convenience."

"Erm," said the voice, "Don't you mean at _his_ earliest convenience? Sir?"

Vimes grinned like a tiger in a butchers shop.

"No," he said. "I think I got it right the first time."

The voice paused for a moment, the sort of pause that seemed to consider issues such as, for example, the casting time of a fireball vs. the amount of time required to stick a sword in some very awkward places.

"Just as you say sir. "

One didn't remain Archchancellor for long without developing a certain street sense. And so Ridcully walked quietly into the room, fully dressed* and quietly** asked Vimes to take a seat.

"What can I do for you, Commander."

"Did you take my son?"

Ridcully quietly*** laid his hands flat on the desk.

"Sir Samuel, I do not know anything about your son, except that I believe I sent him a box of sweets on his last birthday. Finest Klatchian, I eat them myself. Would you like to sit down, and tell me what is going on?"

Vimes blinked and realized he was holding a naked sword.

Although somehow, Ridcully couldn't look at the sword. He couldn't look away from the eyes…

"They took the children."

"What children, Sir Samuel?"

"All of them. And don't call me sir." he added automatically.

"Comander Vimes, why don't you tell me what happened."

Vimes leaned forward, both fists on the table. Ridcully leaned back.

"Did you- any of you, take our children?"

"No. No we did not."

Vimes fist hit the table and something cracked. It must have been the table, because Vimes didn't twitch.

"_Don't lie to me, wizard. Not today._"

"We didn't, I swear we didn't please I'm innocent please gods..."

Vimes eyes were the badge and the law and they stripped away guile and deceit and all the inner lies we tell ourselves. For one long moment Vimes looked at the wizard and saw true and false. There was no lie in the wizard's eyes. After all, Ridcully was still breathing, wasn't he?

"Find them, wizard. Find them now. Or a terrible thing will happen to you."

"And what, exactly, sort of terrible thing might that be, Si..Mister Vimes?" Ridcully managed.

Vimes voice was quiet as a coiled snake, as a drawn sword, as the grave.

"Me."

*He had his hat. A wizard or a witch can be naked in an arctic blizzard, and as long as they have their hat, they're fully dressed.

**"There's a tiger in the bushes" quietly.

***"Now the tiger's seen us" quietly.

…

Susan Sto Helit sat in a classroom of empty desks. She wrote nothing in particular, but teachers seated at a desk must be writing at all times. It's a rule of the universe. Above her head, the clock stood at 7:59 exactly. With a creak and a groan, the big hand hit the twelve. A door popped open, and a whimsical cuckoo popped out with the air of someone being shoved from behind a curtain to face a crowded auditorium.. It nervously cheeped eight times and beat a hasty retreat.

The pen scribbled on efficiently.

It was 8:03. That was alright. Susan was not herself a morning person, and felt a few minutes leeway at the beginning of the day was less a privilege than a human right.

It was 8:05. Very well. It was rare, but they had been good children lately, and perhaps they could be allowed a few minutes once in a while.

It was 8:10. She would have Words, both with the class and their hapless parents.

It was 8:15. Such a thing was impossible. Never, had any child, or the most negligent parents, permitted such a thing.

She laid the pen neatly to one side and sighed. Then she glanced at the pad, and the list of small, neat little names, each with a small, neat little box next to them. Each box was empty.

It was 8:20, and Susan lifted her head from the desk, dabbing at her eyes. Her mouth was thin and twisted at the edges. She put on her hat, and walked to the door. As she passed through the door, she turned at right angles to reality and stepped elsewhere.

He could find anyone. And He owed her more than a few favors.

A moment later, she stepped hastily out of nothingness next to the Klatchian takeaway and left minutes later with a wax paper bag. Noxious vapors drifted out of the bag and slid, unnoticed, to the ground where they pooled and singed the grass after she'd left.

…..

The new golden dollar spun and shone and caught the light like a thing alive and smacked back into Moist's hand. He had no idea of how long he'd sat there. The light outside was long and red, but he couldn't remember when he'd come in. Couldn't remember anything. He'd been looking so hard for little Jamie, looking everywhere, even though Jamie couldn't even crawl yet, and he'd heard the shouting but he had to keep looking. Gladys had come eventually and carried him off. He'd been screaming the whole way, screaming for help, but so was everyone else.

There was nothing he could do. He wished that he was a wizard, for the first time in his life. A wizard could do something, could tear apart reality, could go anywhere, strike down anything in his path. But what could he do?

There was a tap at the door, and Glady's huge head appeared around the corner.

"There Is A Queue. Mr. Lipwig."

"We're closed. Only government business today."

"That Is Only The Clacks, Sir. What About The Mail?"

"_Damn the mail!"_ He lifted his flat hand from the desk, blinking at Lord Vetenari's head, etched in red on the palm of his hand.

Glady's looked…affronted. As affronted as two tons of mobile clay could get.

"We Have Our Duty, Mr. Liwig. Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Glom Of…"

"…Nor glom of nit will stray these messengers abot their duty." He sighed. "yes, I know Glady's. 'Quirm expects that every man will do his duty,' eh?"

He crossed to the door and stopped, his brow furrowed.

"Quirm."

He turned to the big maps that hung on his walls, marked in a rainbow of inks, crosshatched with the red threads that marked the clacks routes.

"And Sto Helit. And Lancre. Klatch…even. Not the far wastes, I never made it that far but I could clacks Three-Ball Achmed and the Wasteland Priest…"  
He scrabbled for pen and paper and stopped as Glady's quietly handed him a pad. Then there was a long half hour and a pen that scribbled constantly. Eventually Moist stopped, stretching a cramped hand, and flipped through nearly ten pages of close cramped handwriting. It was written in the best code he'd invented-his own handwriting. Only Glady's could make it out, and there was no force on earth or out of it that could make a golem talk. He handed her the pad.  
"Send these out on the clacks."  
"Yes Sir."  
She strode out of the room, down the hall, and out the building. Then she hesitated, stopping and thinking. She knew that Mr. Lipwig would want what he wrote kept private. But she had to read it to the clacksman, didn't she? So therefore, it couldn't be secret from her at all, could it?  
A strange feeling like a fiery itch took hold of her. She could not place it, nor place when she first had feelings at all. But suddenly, she had to know what was on that paper before she could think, or move, or even obey orders. She flipped open the pad, glanced around in sudden fear (fear?) of discovery, and began to read.

Most of the messages were the same. A brief greeting and then:

"I don't know if you've heard, but I've been working for Lord Vetinari recently, and I think we will need your help. I'm sure I can count on you, just like when we ran that bank in Arsend, Klatch, right? Thanks ever."

Each was signed with a different name, or in some cases, merely initials.

Glady's went on her way, unenlightened, but with a sense that she carried death in her hands. In the wastes of time she had carried messages for the Icecold Kings and for the Watchful Men. She had carried in her hands messages that she knew brought death, and they had been cold in her hands as these words were cold.

And for no reason she thought of the tall and laughing young man she'd seen just yesterday, with the new father wonder still in his eyes, and a terrible sorrow came over her, as though she had just heard of his death, and knew she would never see him again.


End file.
